This brief examines the stated intentions of President-elect Trump’s campaign and transition team regarding energy policy, the potential roadblocks to their realization, and what the administration could reasonably and quickly turn into a reality.

Growth in oil and gas production has led to major new revenues for US state and local governments. This paper examines the top 16 oil and gas producing states, showing substantial variation in how these revenues are collected and allocated.

Policymakers have begun imposing prices, via a tax or emissions trading system, on the consumption of carbon emissions. Our survey suggests that such policies can be designed to help improve economic efficiency and potentially ameliorate emissions leakage.

An economy-wide carbon tax is a feasible mechanism to achieve the US 2025 Paris Agreement emissions target. We examine the price level and associated costs of carbon taxes that achieve reductions of 28 percent below 2005 emissions by 2025.

An experiment using financial stakes to simulate an infrequent environmental disaster reveals how people learn about and mitigate disaster risk. Subjects exhibited rationality along some dimensions of behavior and irrationality along others.

Countries’ emissions mitigation pledges took many different forms under the 2015 Paris Agreement. This work highlights the role of transparency in understanding this variation and illustrates how economic tools can assess and compare mitigation efforts.

Global energy projections commonly assume, absent policy interventions, that coal will substitute for oil and gas after 2050. We consider evidence for a coal backstop energy supply and its continued use in the IPCC’s baseline greenhouse gas scenarios.

Is Section 115 of the Clean Air Act a viable alternative or complement to the Clean Power Plan? This paper critically examines Section 115 and its potential breadth and flexibility for regulating greenhouse gases, concluding that it holds great promise but also comes with legal risks.

The Clean Power Plan is expected to contribute substantially to US greenhouse gas emissions reductions, but the Supreme Court has halted its implementation. However, the conditions supporting a stay based on economic harms to the coal sector are not met.

RFF experts comment on technology, consumer behavior, and zero emission vehicles in response to a draft report by the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, and California Air Resources Board on the midterm review of US standards for greenhouse gases and fuel economy for passenger vehicles.

This paper summarizes an evaluation of the Guided Angler Fish transfer provision of the Catch Sharing Plan of the Alaskan Halibut fishery—the first significant federal catch share program implemented in the United States including recreational fishermen.

This brief examines EIA’s National Energy Modeling System with respect to BLM’s federal coal leasing review. We find that BLM should weigh a variety of well-crafted scenarios and other model inputs when preparing its draft environmental impact statement.

An analysis of the impact of water scarcity on the electricity sector in the United States demonstrates how water scarcity shifts electricity production from hydropower to natural gas, resulting in increased carbon dioxide emissions.

The new Corporate Average Fuel Economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards will radically change the fuel economy and emissions of US light-duty vehicles. What are the implications of lower gasoline prices for the benefits and costs of the standards?